


None On My Fingers

by semi_sweet



Series: almost-happy families [1]
Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Costumes, Family time, Fluff, Halloween, I have no idea it's basically fluffy as fuck okay?, Implied Smut, M/M, Married Life, One-Shot, Trick or Treating, nervous patrick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 23:25:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12568552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semi_sweet/pseuds/semi_sweet
Summary: >>He looked around frantically in search of the tiny skeleton with the blonde hair, trying, oh so very hard, to keep calm, to not freak, to just… stay cool, Patrick, stay cool, you’re a cool dad that doesn’t panic. “Uh, Pete,” he really, really tried to keep his voice casual, but he suspected he failed at that. His husband spun around, the little boy in a dragon onesie on his shoulders screeching happily at the sudden motion. “Sup?” Pete lisped through the fake fangs. The dismay that crept up on Patrick when he realized that Pete hadn’t even noticed their child was missing had to be pushed aside in an attempt to be a cool dad. One that his kids wouldn’t tut at when he stood waiting at the door because they were home from school five minutes late and he totally was not panicking. He cleared his throat. “Where’s… hmm, have you seen Robin?”<<In which it's kinda cold, kinda bleak, everything's a fire hazard and Patrick is just trying his best to find white picket fence America.





	None On My Fingers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SnitchesAndTalkers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnitchesAndTalkers/gifts).



> WELCOME, IT'S HERE!!!
> 
> Welcome to Trick or Pete 2k17. I hope you enjoy this and I hope you like this little contribution to it. Shoutout to the amazing SnitchesAndTalkers for organizing this whole thing and also beta'ing this specific work, you're a babe. (Yes, I actually had the beta'd. Kinda. She made sure it wasn't shit, okay?)  
> I'm gonna stop talking now.
> 
> Happy Halloween! Let's get spoopy.

   
  
---  
  
cold, bleak, grey. Patrick was not a fan of Halloween. Maybe because he was a little more superstitious than he liked to admit, maybe because everywhere was a fire hazard, burning candles didn’t do well around cheap, flammable costumes. If it were just him, he’d be tucked up in bed watching a movie, or maybe playing a videogame, but alas…

The little, black cat was hanging off his arm, more like a monkey than a feline… then again, Patrick had a vivid memory of one of the little bastards digging its claws into his flesh and clinging onto him like its life depended on it. They hadn’t given Lainy claws. Putting sharp, pointy things on a four-year-old wasn’t exactly advisable, especially not when there were lots of other four-year-olds around. Seeing Pete let their eldest take a wooden sword with him – because that somehow complemented the spooky scary skeleton look – had already brought Patrick disturbingly close to a stroke.

And then there were the sweets, _god_ , as if kids needed any encouragement to gorge on bullshit. He didn’t want to completely restrict their sweet consumption, he wasn’t that prude, but he wasn’t dumb either, and he knew exactly that when sweets were in the house, they were gobbled up like they were going out of fashion. Halloween sweets weren’t even _good_ , talk about adding insult to injury!

“Papa, why have you slowed down?” Patrick glanced down at the blonde, blue-eyed girl staring up at him. “Take your finger out of your mouth, sweetie, it’s bad for your teeth.” Lainy protested, but removed her little finger from where it was firmly lodged in her mouth and instead stuck her tongue out at her father. “Hey! What did we say about sticking your tongue out at people?!”

“Alright, Lainy, come on, leave the hedgehog alone, let’s catch up with daddy and Luke and…“ Patrick stopped dead. His heart missed a beat. He looked around frantically in search of the tiny skeleton with the blonde hair, trying, oh so very hard, to keep calm, to not freak, to just… _stay cool, Patrick, stay cool, you’re a cool dad that doesn’t panic._ “Uh, Pete,” he really, really tried to keep his voice casual, but he suspected he failed at that. His husband spun around, the little boy in a dragon onesie on his shoulders screeching happily at the sudden motion. “Sup?” Pete lisped through the fake fangs. The dismay that crept up on Patrick when he realized that Pete _hadn’t even noticed_ their child was missing had to be pushed aside in an attempt to be a cool dad. One that his kids wouldn’t tut at when he stood waiting at the door because they were home from school five minutes late and he totally was not panicking. He cleared his throat. “Where’s… hmm, have you seen Robin?” Pete’s frown was what broke out the panic. Patrick felt his heart-rate and breathing both pick up when he said the six words no parent ever wants to hear: “I thought he was with you?” _Stay cool, stay calm, this is fine._

It wasn’t fucking, fine, it was anything but fine, it was 6 p. m. at the end of October, it was dark, it was cold, there were nutters out on the streets in scary costume and their 6-year-old child was nowhere to be seen. _Fuck fuck fuck._

Patrick’s terror must have been evident, painted on his features, the not-very-cool dad. “Hey, Trick, it’s okay, calm down.” Why was Pete so calm? Why was he so damned collected? He was faintly aware of a hand on the sleeve of his dumb costume. “It’s not _fine_ , Pete, our child is… is missing!”

He spun around, his eyes frantically scanning the street. “ROBIN!” Patrick yelled, as loud as his broken lungs would let him, it tore through his throat and out of his body, filling the night. Mothers shot him startled glances, kids looked at him like he was crazy, yelling at nothingness dressed as a wizard, he might well be. He turned back to face the other way, legs trembling, tears blurring his vision, ready to fall and soak his cheeks.

This was it. His worst nightmare. Any parent’s worst nightmare.

He turned to the group of kids two houses down, bribing them with sweets from Lainy’s bag to tell him if they’d seen him, if they’d seen his baby boy, if they knew where he was.

Nobody did.

And when he turned back to Pete, he… he…

Patrick ran back and scooped up his little child in his arms, squeezing him close, inhaling his scent burying his face in the black shirt, probably smearing the cheap make-up all over himself, all the while trying to hold back the tears that had built up.

He was alright.

Fuck, he was okay.

Once the initial relief at finding his son had faded, he set him down on the floor, anger taking its place. Patrick crouched down and lifted a stern finger to the boy’s nose, putting on his, possibly over-used, stern parent lecture face.

“Robin Taylor Wentz, do not EVER run off like that again! I lost my mind, kid! Don’t you DARE leave my side until we get home, got it?!” He was being watched, he knew it, but the lecture was necessary and any onlooking parents would understand. Hopefully.

“It… papa, it wasn’t… I was right here… all the time, papa!” Robin’s little face was pulled into a confused frown, his lip was trembling like he was close to tears. He’d always been a sensitive kid, since the day he’d been born. Now _that_ was a bittersweet memory. Patrick dropped his head with a sigh, he hated making the kids cry. It wasn’t like he did it on purpose, they just weren’t fond of the lectures he gave them…

Pete never made them cry. Well, unless he was letting them fall down stairs or cracking their heads against tables because “I didn’t know she was that tall, I was just, like, swinging her by her, like, her legs, the table was suddenly just there!” He never made them cry because of something he said deliberately.

When Patrick looked up at him, though, he was wearing a shit-eating grin that simultaneously filled Patrick’s stomach with butterflies and made his gut clench. “What? What is it, what?”

Tiny hands clamped over his eyes from above, rendering Pete blind, and he had to carefully pry away Luke’s little arms. “You’re so cute when you’re worried.” He was _what?!_ Cute?! Anger and disbelief must have been visible in Patrick’s features, making Pete take a step back. “Are you f- Pete, our, our _kid!_ Our little baby, he was _gone!_ He could’ve… what if he…. _Fridge_!”

The snort his husband gave at his choice of curse was almost as infuriating as his lack of realization of just how dire the situation could have been and Patrick shot him a glare that could kill. Though, somehow, he doubted it had that effect. He’d been told plenty of times how cute he was when he got angry.

“If you’d chilled for one second, you’d have noticed he was just over there” he indicated a pile of leaves, “instead of running off frantically, remember that kids are even smaller than you and can hide behind things.” Pete punctuated his sentence with a tap on Patrick’s nose, having moved in close enough once he’d assessed the danger of being punched in the gut wasn’t present as long as he had their 18-month-old on his shoulders. Instead, he received a scowl. It was cute. He didn’t say that.

 

“I fridging hate Halloween!” Patrick muttered before grabbing both Lainy and Luke by the hand and marching off to the next doorbell, bag of sweets over his arm.

 

 

 

“Will you PLEASE stop fighting?” Kids. People never tell you how much of your parent life you spend yelling the names you lovingly chose for your gorgeous little children. Had Patrick known, he would have named them “Hey”, “No” and “Stop”. At least they’d chosen relatively short names, easy to yell.

He rubbed his temples, the headache already forming thanks to the screeching over who got which sweets. Patrick wanted to kill himself, he actually wanted to die right then and there.

“Nobody likes candy corn!! I don’t want the bleeping candy corn!”

“No swearing, Robin!”

“I didn’t swear, I sensed it!”

“What?”

“I sensed the swear?”

“You mean censored?”

“Yes, spencered!”

“No, cen- y’know what, it doesn’t matter… Luke, no, no don’t eat the pumpkin, you can’t… it’s not… Lainy stop! I can see you!”

“But papa! Robin keeps taking all my Snickers!”

Patrick let out a long, frustrated sigh and turned to his oldest son, who already had his lying face on. But before he could say anything, his saving grace swept in. “Come on, Robin, give your sister some of the Snickers, and don’t argue, I can see them in your bag.” With a huff, Robin reluctantly handed over three bars – how very generous of him. Pete crossed the kitchen to where Luke was using peanut butter as improvised paint on the once-white table and effortlessly swung him onto his hip before grabbing Lainy by the arm and declaring he was putting their two youngest to bed.

They went without protest.

Patrick slumped down onto the bench behind the island counter and pressed his palms to his eyes until stars dotted the insides of his lids.

Kids were fucking exhausting.

A tiny tug at his sleeved made him look down at the blonde boy staring up at him with big, blue eyes. Oddly, he was Pete’s. Genetically, that was. Both their sons were. They’d sort of agreed on having four children, each of them biologically fathering two of them, though Patrick could honestly settle with just doing one. He didn’t know if he’d survive having to raise a fourth. Besides, it was a total bitch to find a surrogate mother. They’d been insanely lucky to find ones so far, but Patrick didn’t know if he wanted to deal with the hassle of it again.

They could always just adopt if they changed their minds.

“You okay papa?”

Patrick blinked in surprise, Robin never was one to talk about problems, neither his or anybody else’s. he was sensitive as hell, yes, but also a pro at bottling up the tiny little problems his 6-year-old heart had. He may not look much like Pete, but he really was him, through and through. “Yeah, sweetie” he attempted a smile, “just a bit, a bit exhausted, y’know. Sometimes I think your, uh, your, your dad has this all sorted quite… a bit better than I d…”

For the second time that day, Patrick’s blood ran cold. He had to bite his tongue so he didn’t swear in front of his child, desperately searching the pockets of his black jeans and panicking when he came up with nothing. With frankly alarming vigour, he sprang up, nearly sending the bench flying, and practically sprinted towards the paper bags still standing on the table, despite him having told the three little ones to tidy them away.

“What’s the matter?” Robin’s little voice was filled with concern as Patrick tore through the bags of sweets like a madman, emptying them out, frantically combing through the contents now lying strewed out over the table.

“Y’know, I swear, that story about the beetle always g- Patrick, what the hell are you doing?”

Pete had made a re-appearance and he stood in the doorway, frowning at his husband tearing through bags of sweets like he was a little kid who’d been left alone with them. Patrick didn’t reply, too focussed on combing through the pile of his children’s Halloween treats for what seemed like the tenth time. His hands were trembling and the sweat on his brow glinted in the light coming from above him. It took Pete four strides to get to him and he wrapped an arm around his shoulders in a gesture that was supposed to be calming.

Had he completely lost it now? Well, Pete supposed this had always been coming, he tried way too hard to be the perfect dad, to the point where he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night because it made him fidgety that he couldn’t see his offspring, that he couldn’t be 100% sure they were safe. That aside, he’d always been pretty nuts, an image of socks and an argyle sweater flashing before Pete’s mind’s eye. Yep, Patrick had finally, completely lost his marbles. On Halloween.

Pete did his best to keep his voice gentle “Hey, shh, calm down, what is it?” There was no response, Patrick simply pulled away and ran past him into the hallway. He dug through his coat pocket, again and again, turning it inside-out and upside down, praying for the clattering sound of metal against wood, but nothing came.

A hand gripped his shoulder, firmly but not painfully. It was the reassuring feeling of Pete touching him. He turned around to meet brown eyes, concern just dancing in their depths, not enough to be obvious, but Patrick had spent the last 20 years of his life looking into those eyes, he could read them like a book. Pete’s voice was soft when he spoke, like a warm fire on a rainy day it settled over Patrick’s mind, not enough to calm him down, but enough for his brain to kick in again.

“What’s wrong?”

Guilty. That’s how Patrick felt, he felt guilty. He averted his gaze, looking anywhere but his husband, even closing his eyes so he didn’t run the risk of glancing at him. Fingers brushed his chin, trying to turn his face back, but he resisted. Quietly, ever so quietly, he replied. “I lost… I lost my, my wedding ring…”

It kinda hurt to say it. And Pete… Pete, he… he laughed? Patrick’s brow creased in a frown and he finally turned to look up at the man holding his left hand, driving his thumb across where the gold band should have been. “Why are you laughing? This isn’t funny, Pete!”

“No, it’s not, I just… come here,” Patrick found himself being pulled closer and the feeling of familiar lips pressed against his forehead sent sparks shooting through his body. Would he ever tire of it? He doubted it.

He drew a deep breath and let it out in a strained staccato, his eyes fixed on the very, very faint tan line on his left hand.

“Come on,” a hand curled into his and Patrick felt himself being tugged along the hallway, towards the white front door. “Pete, no, it’s late. We can’t… the kids…”

Before Patrick could interject, Pete had turned to the staircase and yelled so loudly he’d probably woken the entire neighbourhood: “KIDS, GET OUT OF BED, PAPA HAS LOST HIS WEDDING RING AND WE’RE GOING ON A HUNT!” It earned him a slap on the arm and a scolding look, accompanied with “It’s 9 p. m., Peter!”

Pete just grinned broadly.

 

 

 

“Okay, when did you last have it?” Patrick was getting more and more flustered by the minute, and nobody wants to have to deal with Pisstrick, as Pete lovingly called him when he was being a drama queen (“Pete that sounds like some weird-ass kink can we _not_ let that become a thing?!”), admittedly, it was usually reserved for the studio.

“I don’t know, okay, I don’t…” he drove a hand over his face and ruffled his thinning hair. Pete liked it, but he still felt the need to hide his bald patch and receding hairline beneath hats most of the time. “God, Pete, I don’t _know_ , we just… I can’t- it’s gone!”

“Okay. Double L, you two, go look through the leaves over there!” Pete gestured towards the strip of green separating the pavement from the road, “don’t go off the grass, okay?” The two little kids skipped off with a happy “Okay!”, overjoyed by the fact that they were allowed to play detective outside so late on at night. Patrick frowned at Pete, he hadn’t been over there and they both knew it, but his husband just winked at him.

 Robin, meanwhile, was – still dressed as a skeleton – doing his best to offer what little support he could. The kid had more or less devised an entire map of Patrick’s whereabouts throughout the evening, questioning him about his exact movements, down to the smallest little detail he could possibly think of. “So, when you left us…”

“When I was looking for my missing son, yes.” Patrick stared at him pointedly.

“Where did you go?”

“Like, one house down, I didn’t exactly disappear to Narnia.”

The tiny skeleton’s forehead creased in thought, he was taking this ever so seriously. “Did you check the sidewalk there?” Patrick was doing his best to remain patient and not tell their son just how utterly pointless his questioning was, Pete could tell by the way he was chewing his lip. “Yes, I checked the sidewalk there.”

“Daddy, daddy! I found it!” Pete and Patrick both spun round, Patrick’s eyes gleaming with hope as their daughter called them. He didn’t think he’d been over there, but the ring might have been kicked or… or maybe it had flown off his finger or something.  
His face immediately dropped again, though, when Lainy held up an old keyring. Pete had to bite back the laugh, too fond of his head to want to lose it today. “Sweetie, well spotted!” She was beaming with pride, “oh, but I think…” Pete crouched down to her, “hmm, this isn’t the one we’re looking for. Papa’s ring looks like mine, see.” Patrick had to look away when Pete lifted his left hand to show his daughter the gold band around his finger, the one that had _P. M. W. 04~17~2011_ carved into the inside. No way in hell was Patrick keeping his dumb surname, not if he had the opportunity to change it practically handed to him on a golden plate, that much had been clear from the second he’d dropped to one knee in front of Pete in Griffith park with nothing but a ring-pop because he knew bribing him with food would increase the chances of a ‘yes’. Also, it had been kinda impromptu.

Patrick took to scanning the pavement for the ninth time, he didn’t care how pointless it was, he had to do something. He was fully aware of Pete’s doubtful stared burning into the back of his head, but what did it matter?  

Robin, meanwhile, was diligently re-tracing Patrick’s movements according to the notes he’d scribbled down on his little pad of paper. He’d just finished learning how to write a few months back, so that he sometimes still got letters the wrong way round and was even worse at spelling than his papa, but he made a point of writing as much as he possibly could. His little face creased into a concentrated frown as he plodded up and down the street, eyes vigilantly scanning the ground. Whether he was being so enthusiastic because he was enjoying himself, or whether it was because he still felt bad for freaking his papa out so much earlier, Pete couldn’t tell. It was insanely cute though, and he managed to snap a few sneaky photos of their son lost in thought when Patrick wasn’t looking.

He was way too busy losing his mind. Still dressed in his wizard ‘costume’, no longer recognizable as such having lost the hat and refused to wear the fake beard in the first place. He kept stepping on the dumb, blue cape that was much too long for him, what with all the spinning and turning he was doing. The frantic searching wasn’t helping at all, in fact, it was about as helpful as the toddler and the child playing in the pile of leaves below the maple tree, but Pete wasn’t about to make the situation worse by pointing that out. He was actually pretty glad he’d had the mind to remove those godawful plastic fangs, breaking the tension with an unnatural lisp probably wouldn’t have been beneficial to his chances of not getting murdered by the hubby.

He let out a deep sigh, quiet enough for Patrick not to be able to hear it, it was pretty unlikely they were ever gonna find the ring again, he knew that. He knew Patrick knew that. He also knew that whilst he was more upset about the loss of it than he would let on, he knew Patrick was utterly fucking distraught, not least of all because he’d said so.

“To hell with it, I’m ringing on doorbells!” Patrick had run off to the first house and pushed the doorbell before anybody could convince him otherwise. There was a muffled moan through the wood and when the door swung open, it was to reveal a rather confused Mrs. Arthur. Admittedly, Patrick would probably have been confused himself if a 34-year-old dad wearing a cheap and very nasty wizard costume came ringing at his doorbell at 10 o’clock at night. He did his best to seem apologetic rather than slightly panicky.

“Hi, I, umh, lost my, my wedding ring. You don’t… happen to, uh…” there was a flash of sympathy that crossed the woman’s face as she shook her head. “No dear, sorry, but I’ll let you know if…” With a resigned huff, Patrick nodded. “Thanks. Sorry for the disturbance. I just… y’know.”

“It’s fine, I get it. Hope you find it!” He attempted a small smile he knew failed before heading to the next house down – the Florents. But before Patrick had a chance to make enemies out of the next set of neighbours, a tiny skeleton came bounding up to him, closely followed by a little girl in pyjamas and a fangless vampire carrying a dog on his shoulders. His heart fluttered a little at the sight of them, his little family, his little bit of white picket fence America. And then the streetlight caught the golden band on Pete’s finger just right, the angle perfect for it to glint at Patrick, like it was mocking him. He looked down at his own bare finger and rubbed his thumb across the skin paled by years of being covered up. He felt so guilty, so, so guilty for losing the ring. Seven years. He’d had it for seven years. What was it they said about the seventh year?

“Patrick,” Pete’s voice was soft, like a kitten or a puppy or something else tiny and heart-warming, “let’s go home.”

“No, Pete, I can’t! I can’t…” Pete let out a pitying sigh, “it’s late, babe, we’ve been looking for over an hour, I don’t think there’s anything we can do without the light. Besides, the kids need to go to bed. That’s way more important than some dumb ring.”

The words may have been the last thing Pete would ever had said if looks really could kill. Patrick shot him the dirtiest glare anybody could ever come up with, so much so that Pete physically recoiled. “Some _dumb_ ring?!” Patrick jogged to keep up after Pete, who was carrying Luke, dragging Lainy along by her wrist and being followed closely by a rather nervous-looking Robin, taking the longest strides he could manage to get back home as quickly as possible so they wouldn’t end up doing this in public. Patrick had his fighting face on – rarely used but never anything short of terrifying. “Peter!! It’s _not_ a- a dumb ring! Do you… d’you know how much it means to me?!”

“Uh… well, your, uh, reaction is rather… telling.” He wasted no time jogging up to their front door as his husband’s voice steadily increased in volume. “Pete, it’s a- a _token_ of our, our love! My love for you! I have… fuck” Pete shot a pointed glare at Robin whose little face lit up at the sound of the swear word, “Your… the… your initials, you know how, how incredibly gay that is, Pete?!”

“We are gay, Patrick.” He kicked the door open and ushered the two youngest upstairs quickly before the scene got much worse and turned to motion to Robin to go to bed, as well. “That’s not the _POINT!_ Fuck, Pete!” Okay, this was really getting out of hand, he’d start throwing fists any moment soon. Pete made his best attempt at stilling the waters a little, “shhhh, Trick, the kids…”

“I DON’T CARE OKAY, I HAVE LOST MY WEDDING RING, MY FUCKING RPOMISE TO YOU TO NEVER LEAVE YOU DO YOU NOT CARE ABOUT THAT?!”

“It’s just a ring, Patrick.”

“IT’S A SYMBOL OF OUR LOVE! DON’T… DON’T YOU CARE ABOUT THAT?!” He was nearly red-faced, his entire body shaking and hands coiled into tight fists at his side. He wouldn’t hit Pete, he never would and Pete knew that, he just… didn’t like the look of them. He cautiously reached out and put a hand on Patrick’s arm, “baby, please, our love is so much more than a piece of metal! So much more.” Patrick’s bottom lip trembled, the way it did when he was about to lose a fight and going to have to give over to one of Joe’s ideas. It was always hard to see whether he’d explode or break down sobbing whenever it came this far, Pete honestly preferred the former.

But Patrick’s voice was barely a wisp when he spoke, all energy drained from it. “I just… I wanted…” he refused to look up, opting instead to stare at the blank wall over Pete’s shoulder, “I made a vow and… I lost…” The tut Pete let out stung. he wasn’t being over-dramatic, he _wasn’t_ , how could his husband not fucking care that he’d lost his wedding ring? The remnants of make-up still on his face where hot and sticky and not at all contributing to his mood. Patrick half-heartedly wiped at them, carelessly staining his black cardigan. It didn’t matter.

“Patrick, I love you, but you’re dumb as shit sometimes.” He opened his mouth to protest, finally looking Pete in the eye, but was cut off by warm, red-painted lips against his. “I’m not dumb”, he muffled into the kiss, “I… mhh… promised I’d…. I’d love you and… mmh… and I lost the… the… I’m so useless…” Pete wasn’t replying, only slotting their mouths together over, and over again as his hands gripped Patrick’s waist, “I’m… I can’t even get the kids… to bed… I’m so… useless…” Pete’s tongue pushed into his mouth, interrupting the little self-deprecating trip he’d embarked upon in a second. Thank God, he’d taken his fangs out the second they’d finished trick or treating.

“Stop with the bullshit, Trick”, he muttered, changing back to small pecks rather than deep kisses, “now how about we got upstairs, check if the kids are sleeping and then bone?” Patrick sighed into the kiss. He hated how Pete had him totally wrapped around his little finger.

 

 

 

 

The bedsheets were damp with sweat by the time Pete flopped onto his back. His chest rose and fell heavily with every deep breath he drew and he squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to still his shaking legs. “We should… ah… do that way, way more often”, Patrick panted. “Mmmmh. Kids”, more of an explanation wasn’t necessary, Patrick knew full well that in the rare event their children weren’t buzzing around them, they were too tired to do anything other than just fall into bed and sleep. Not that it had to be a bed, any somewhat horizontal surface would do, really.

“I can’t believe you wouldn’t… wouldn’t let me shower first. I feel… it’s fucking gross, man.” Pete cracked open an eye to see his husband pulling displeased faces at the makeup staining the sheets and clinging to his body in a big, messy, sweaty goo. “I always wanted to fuck a wizard, though.”

“Hmm…”

“Hey, Patrick?” When blue eyes flicked over to meet his, Pete cracked one of his stupidly childish grins, “it was magical.”

“Fuck off, Wentz.” Pete couldn’t help but chuckle. Pisstrick was scary, wannabe Pisstrick was downright adorable. He rolled over, lightly catching soft, warm lips with his in a quick kiss. At least Patrick seemed quite a bit calmer than he had before. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just…” Patrick paused. He didn’t need to say it, Pete knew. Pete also knew anything he would say was utter bullshit. Pete also knew that Patrick knew that. “Y’know.” He stroked a thumb over his pale, dirty face, taking off the layer of smudged make-up covering his soft cheeks. “I know.”

Patrick didn’t hesitate to wiggle into his open arms, laying his head against Pete’s chest so he could hear his heartbeat and feel his breathing. Pete, meanwhile, stroked over the mop of hair that used to be a strawberry blond, but had turned to a light brown over the years, streaked with the first grey highlights. “I feel so bad, Pete, I… it’s just a ring, I know but it’s, it’s, like, so much more than that, it’s you and you gave it to me and… and… it’s irreplaceable, that’s the idea and I’m so fucking stupid, I just… why aren’t you mad at me?”

Pete sighed and pressed a kiss to the top of his head, “d’you think you mean so little to me that I’m mad because you lost a ring? I know what it means to you, to me, too, but I married you, not the damn ring.” Patrick nestled a little further into his chest, “Like, I hate seeing you upset and that’s why I’m upset, but… I’m not mad.”

A heavy sigh rung through the room, the sound of Patrick’s utter frustration. All Pete could do was cuddle and kiss him and reassure him it really wasn’t the end of the world. “I suggest we sleep now, then tomorrow morning, we can have another look around, yeah?”

Patrick sounded hesitant and a little unconvinced when he spoke. “Yeah.” Pete reached across the bed and tugged the duvet over both of them, enveloping themselves in a crispy warmth. He shuffled closer to his husband’s warm body and wrapped his arms tightly around it until he was pretty certain his face was being squished into his chest to the point where he couldn’t breathe. The sound was muffled, the movement of lips and the rush of air tickling his skin. “G’night, love you.”

Pete pressed a final kiss to the blonde hair before turning off the bedside lamp. “Love you too, Trick. Even if you are a drama queen.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks guys! Make sure to check out the other works in this collection once they're up and feel free to add your own! My tumblr is scmi-sweet if you wanna get in touch :)


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